Davis Is Keeping Speedskating on Edge

He Battles U.S. Establishment All the Way to Podium

American Shani Davis accelerated en route to finishing second in the 500 meters on Saturday at the world all-around championships in Moscow. Davis and his coach, Bob Fenn, celebrated on Sunday after Davis became the overall winner in the competition.

The best all-around speedskater in the world, an American, has trained in Calgary, Alberta, for two years, deliberately and happily marooned from the U.S. national team. Two weeks ago, he lost his funding from U.S. Speedskating, the sport's national governing body, after a contract dispute. Dissatisfied with how he was treated at the 2002 Winter Games, he left early.

He claims the organization's leaders have been unprofessional, uncaring and unfair to him, charges that are met with denials, sighs and, in some cases, here-we-go-again rolled eyes.

In short, Shani Davis, an early favorite to win as many as four Olympic medals next year, an athlete who could qualify for the 2006 Winter Games in two sports, a seemingly sure-fire, made-for-television star, is angry to the core.

It is part of the reason, he said, he is so good.

"I always knew they were wrong," he said. "Now, I'm a world champion, so obviously, they're wrong. Maybe I can really prove them wrong if I get an Olympic medal -- or a few. It's the best feeling in the world, proving people wrong when you're doing what you love to do."

Davis, 22, is simultaneously U.S. Speedskating's most promising, exciting and marketable athlete and its most enigmatic adversary. It is a combination that has created a crackling drama on and off the ice with the approach of the 2006 Winter Olympics, which get underway one year from yesterday in Turin, Italy.

How odd and unwieldy is the situation? U.S. Speedskating President Andy Gabel tried to refute various charges levied by Davis in one tense breath while offering sweeping -- and seemingly genuine -- praise for him in another.

"He will win the 1,500 meters in Torino," Gabel said. "It's the safest bet in Turin. He's only going to get better. He's still learning how to race. The guy could medal in every distance. He's amazing."

Davis, a Chicago native, made the Olympic team in 2002 in short-track speedskating, the hard-knocks, roller-derby version of the sport, but he never got to compete because he was not selected for the four-person relay. After those Games in Salt Lake City, Davis devoted more attention to long-track speedskating, the more graceful expression of the sport in which Americans such as Dan Jansen and Bonnie Blair excelled, and which Davis had dabbled in since he was 6.

For Turin, he wants to make both teams, something no American has done.

While still competing part-time in short track, which he calls his first love, he has emerged as the world's top long-track skater. Two years ago, he finished 16th at the world championships in the all-around event. This past weekend in Moscow, he became the first African American to win the title, which involves competing in the 500, 1,500, 5,000 and 10,000 meters.

"He makes it look easy," said Casey FitzRandolph, who won the gold medal in the 500 meters at the 2002 Olympics. "I wish I could tell you it is that easy. From my perspective, it's not."

Said Gabel: "He won the 1,500 meters [in Moscow] by more than a second. We don't talk in seconds. We talk in one-hundredths and tenths. Seconds doesn't happen."

Ask Davis about his rise and he will tell you about the hard work he has put into the sport over the last few years. A simple tale. But the more Davis talks, the more the narrative meanders and unravels, the ends resisting the neat, clean ending that Olympic stories are supposed to have.